Islam scholar Tariq Ramadan, a leading professor at Oxford University, and one of the best known Muslim scholars in Europe, has just moments ago been arrested in France on the suspicion of multiple rape cases.

Mr Ramadan is quite popular among conservative Muslims whilst secular critics accuse him of promoting a political form of Islam.

According to the Parisian police, he was first summoned for questioning and then afterwards taken into custody "as part of a preliminary inquiry in Paris into rape and assault allegations."

The leading Oxford professor, a 55-year-old Swiss national, who is also the grandson of the founder of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Islamist movement, has denied the accusations as a "campaign of lies launched by my adversaries".

Ramadan has filed counter-charges for libel and stated that "within a few days, in response to the campaign of lies launched by my adversaries. These accusations are simply false, and betray all the ideals I have long strived for and believed in."

It all started last year with the #BalanceTonPorc campaign, France’s version of the #MeToo hashtag which can be translated at "Expose your pig", or also as “Expose a dirty old man”

One of his accusers Miss Henda Ayari who claims Mr Ramadan raped her in a Paris hotel room in 2012. She then lodged a rape complaint against Mr Tariq Ramadan, claiming that he had said: "either you wear a veil or you get raped".

"He choked me so hard that I thought I was going to die."

A second unnamed woman on also accused Ramadan of raping her in a hotel room.